I have come up with a solution for this which includes the following improvements to make the game less addictive and therefore preserve the original gameplay:
1) Seriously cut down the tech tree. This means that there is less of an incentive to continue playing and make progress.
2) Have one ultimate weapon that can insta-kill anything from the very beginning. This removes the whole 'upgrade your weapons:enemy are tougher:upgrade your weapons:enemy are tougher' battle and therefore means you can spend less time playing overall.
3) Remove robotics. This cuts out a section of the game that was far too engaging and made you want to play it way too much.
4) Remove biters. This is the main reason that you want to play the game more in the early stages.
5) Remove spiters. These creatures just encourage you to play and upgrade your defences way too much.
6) Just remove any form of alien. Although making ideas '2', '4' and '5' irrelevent, this will drastically reduce the challenge and reduce the need to carry on playing.
7) Remove belts and trains. Would you play for hours on end if you had to manually move all items everywhere by yourself? Exactly.
8) Remove the electric system. It was so much more fun when you had to run everything with coal - especially now you have to move it by hand everywhere...
9) Remove the automation system. This just make it so easy to do everything! Basically, I just don't think the whole automation 'thing' really fits factorio...
And finally...
10) Remove copper. This is just an unnecessary item that makes the game way too engaging and... actually remove iron as well - just craft every thing out of coal, stone and wood... nah, it's still too interesting. Remove them and just craft things out of... err... um... Just screw crafting completely!
With all of these minor adjustments, I think factorio will be a much improved game. Retaining all of the things that made factorio factorio and removing those bits that made it too enjoyable and addictive. Please let me know what you think would make factorio a better, less addictive game down below. Thank-you for reading!
JOKES
If you actually thought this was real then you must really hate factorio, the most wonderfully addicting game that I have ever played and will continue to play until I die of starvation from forgetting to eat because I'd been playing it continuously for too many weeks!
If you actually thought this was real then you must really hate factorio, the most wonderfully addicting game that I have ever played and will continue to play until I die of starvation from forgetting to eat because I'd been playing it continuously for too many weeks!